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19th-Century British Literature Videos 19 videos
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Great Expectations Summary 74875 Views
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Description:
Trying to live up to expectations can be stressful. Watching someone else struggle with it, though? That's just fine.
Transcript
- 00:04
Great Expectations, a la Shmoop. Pip pip, cheerio.
- 00:07
Charles Dickens novels are not generally what you would call uppers.
- 00:11
Anyone who's written a book called Bleak House could probably use a hug.
- 00:18
Great Expectations has an ambiguously happy ending.
- 00:22
but only because its author was persuaded to end the novel on a positive note by a good
Full Transcript
- 00:29
friend of his.
- 00:31
Not everyone is in love with depressing endings like Dickens was
- 00:36
If it was up to him, Katniss probably would have been the first one offed in The Hunger
- 00:45
Games. When readers finish Great Expectations, they
- 00:49
are left with a sense of optimism and romantic hopefulness
- 00:55
After running all over the English marshes in Pip's tiny shoes.
- 00:58
It feels good to be granted a cheerful resolution to his story.
- 01:07
Why then was Dickens initially so intent on an unhappy ending?
- 01:12
Was he just a huge downer?
- 01:13
Was his own life so miserable that the only way he could make himself feel better was
- 01:17
to drag everyone else down with him?
- 01:20
He did have a rough childhood...
- 01:22
Éand his wife divorced him shortly before the writing of this novel, which was rare
- 01:28
in those days
- 01:29
so he definitely had some reason to be grouchy.
- 01:33
Or, did he think it was genuinely the best way to end his story?
- 01:39
The book was titled Great Expectations maybe he was trying to make a point about having
- 01:47
such expectations?
- 01:48
That, no matter how pure our intentions and no matter how hard we work
- 01:55
not everything is going to go our way, and you can't earn the love of someone who isn't
- 02:05
feeling it? Dickens wasn't a Hollywood screenwriter
- 02:08
there wasn't the pressure back then to drive audiences to a theater.
- 02:15
Or was Dickens just trying to surprise his readers, and throw them for a loop?
- 02:23
Great Expectations was written serially. In other words, it was released a chapter at
- 02:29
a time, rather than all at once.
- 02:32
Could it be that his readers were all anticipating a happy ending.
- 02:36
and he didn't want to seem predictable? Which way are you leaning?
- 02:42
Morbid downer
- 02:43
Conscientious writer
- 02:44
... or lover of spontaneity? Shmoop amongst yourselves.
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